Dr. Robert A. Kesterson, completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry at Hendrix College, and received a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Baylor College of Medicine (1993) under the mentorship of Dr. J. Wesley Pike and Dr. Francesco DeMayo. His postdoctoral training in the field of neuroendocrinology was carried out at The Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research, Portland, Oregon with Dr. Roger D. Cone, which focused on determining the function of newly cloned melanocortin receptors via development of transgenic animal models. Dr. Kesterson was appointed in 1997 to the faculty of Vanderbilt University in the Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, and was then recruited to UAB in 2004.

Dr. Kesterson is the Director of the UAB Transgenic Mouse Facility, and is a member of several UAB Centers including: Comprehensive Cancer Center, Arthritis & Musculoskeletal Center, Nutrition & Obesity Research Center, Hepatorenal Fibrocystic Disease Core Center, Civitan International Research Center, Diabetes Research & Training Center, and Center for Metabolic Bone Disease.

The main goal of Dr. Kestersonís research is to define the mechanisms and neural pathways by which CNS melanocortin receptors regulate the feeding, energy balance, thermoregulation, inflammation, and learning and memory. Disruption of CNS melanocortin signaling due to loss of function mutations in the POMC gene (which makes the ligand a-MSH) or the type 4 melanocortin receptor (MC4R) produces obesity in humans and other mammals. Several approaches are currently being utilized to define the location of the neural circuitry by which a-MSH, MC4R, and MC3R (a related receptor involved with maintaining energy balance) function, including: creating conditional melanocortin receptor knockout animals using the cre/loxP recombinase system, developing transgenic mice expressing GFP, LacZ, and luciferase reporter transgenes to functionally map basal and brain-specific enhancer elements. More recently, research has focused on mechanisms by which primary cilium localized on hypothalamic neurons regulate energy balance.
Additional genetic animal models under development in the Kesterson laboratory include mouse and zebrafish NF1 models for translational research of common nonsense and missense mutations found in Neurofibromatosis-1 patients, rat models of cystic fibrosis ("humanized" CFTR gene), and zebrafish models of ciliopathies.
Graduate Biomedical Science Themes:
# Cancer Biology
# Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology
# Genetics and Genomic Sciences
# Neuroscience